Politics sometimes impedes progress

There is a long history of efforts by legacy industries to block the emergence of competitors offering advantages over the incumbents.

Some such efforts are totally laughable.

Such as when the management of the short-lived Pony Express considered trying to compete with the new telegram technology — featuring almost instantaneous transmission of messages — by using “faster ponies.”

Management quickly saw that since it took 10 days to deliver a letter from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California via “pony power,” the most they could speed up the process was by a few hours. So they folded the company.

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Especially when they are backed by groups that have enough political power and financial strength to overcome logic and good sense.

A local example featuring the taxi industry that is now complaining about “unfair” competition from Uber, etc. occurred when the original plans for Metrorail included a very logical and potentially financially lucrative leg connecting Miami International Airport to Government Center in Downtown Miami.

It made total sense and could have provided enough paying passengers to more quickly make the system profitable.

But that leg was scrubbed when a local taxi industry magnate with considerable political clout told the then Mayor of the county (supposedly in the course of a poker game) that “those are my passengers!”

And so that part of Metrorail was scrubbed.

And it was more than 30 years before that error was corrected by the development of the better-late-than-never connection between MIA and the rest of Metrorail.

Progress produces winners and losers.

And, in general, the outcomes should be decided by the open marketplace and not politics.